Pioneers of aviation

Wright brothers aircraft

The nineteenth century saw the development of two things important for flight: the science of flying and the personality of the flier. When Langley’s Aerodrome crashed into the Potomac on a cold December day in 1903, the report of the War Department, which had funded the project (and so must have had some hope that Langley would succeed), declared that “we are still far from the ultimate goal of human flight.” Five days later, the Wright brothers proved them dead wrong. On 17^th December 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first men in history to fly on an airplane that could fly under its own power. The plane they built was launched off a mono rail track and was powered by a specially made 12 hp engine. The plane only flew For 12 seconds and a distance of 120 feet but it helped pave the way for many more innovations in aviation. Here some early pictures of the pioneers of the aviation are given below:

Onlookers gather around plane flown by French engineer and pioneer aviator Louis Bieriot after he had crossed the English Channel, the first channel crossing airplane.

Antoinette IV, one of the first front-engined monoplanes, designed by French engineer Leon Levavasseur.

Date taken: 1908

Early British aviator Graham White in his flying machine.
Location: United Kingdom
Date taken: 1910

The German airship "Schwaben" (which was destroyed in an explosion at Dusseldorf, June 28, 1912).




Sopwith "Dolphin." The Sopwith Aviation company produced eight varieties of biplane and triplane during World War I.